Duty travel and business travel booking for companies in the GCC.
Flights and hotels for your staff, with entitlements, pre-approval and reporting in the same portal. Headquartered in Dubai.
altovo TravelDesk is a duty travel application and business travel booking tool used by SMEs, mid-market groups, ministries, state-owned enterprises and NGOs across the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, Egypt and Jordan. Employees book within their grade, approvers sign off before ticketing, and finance gets one invoice and a full audit trail. Licence it directly from altovo, or through your local travel management company.
- Flights and hotels in one search
- Entitlement by grade
- Pre-approval before ticketing
- One company invoice
- SSO with your identity provider
Headquartered in Dubai, supported from the region.
altovo was founded in the UK in 2021 and is headquartered in Dubai. The legal entity for the region is altovo FZ-LLC, registered in the United Arab Emirates. Companies in the GCC and the wider Middle East deal with a vendor that is based here, not a reseller.
Dubai, United Arab Emirates
Our head office and the home of altovo FZ-LLC. Companies in the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Qatar, Kuwait and Bahrain are served from here.
Cairo, Egypt
Our Cairo office covers Africa and the wider MENA region, including Egypt and Jordan. See the Africa page for the continent.
Istanbul, Türkiye
Our Istanbul office sits between Europe and the Middle East. Our sales line is UK-based and serves all regions, so the first conversation is the same wherever you are.
Duty travel rules, enforced in the booking flow.
In the GCC, official travel by staff of ministries, state-owned enterprises, universities and NGOs is called duty travel. It has its own rules: an entitlement by grade, pre-approval before any booking, a list of permitted carriers, and an audit trail for every trip. Most duty travel applications are a form that sits outside the booking. TravelDesk puts the rules inside it.
Entitlements become policy rules by employee grade, so an officer sees the cabin and hotel level their grade allows. Pre-approval becomes a mandatory approval step before ticketing. The permitted carrier list becomes preferred content in search. The audit trail is the booking history you already have, with the approver and reason on every trip.
Travel arrangers can book on behalf of executives and visiting delegations. When an approver is on leave, a deputy is set for the period so bookings do not stall. Budget holders see spend by department and cost centre and can export it.
How a duty travel rule maps to TravelDesk
- Entitlement by grade Cabin class and hotel cap rules per employee grade
- Pre-approval Mandatory approval step before ticketing
- Permitted carriers Preferred and excluded airlines and hotels in policy
- Audit trail Full booking history, approver and reason on every trip
- Budget holder Spend by department and cost centre, exportable
- Arrangers Book for executives and delegations from one login
- Deputisation A deputy approver covers leave, so trips do not stall
Flights and hotels across the Gulf and beyond.
TravelDesk runs on the same inventory as the rest of the altovo platform. A ministry in Oman or an SME in Kuwait gets the same global content a large TMC would, for duty travel within the GCC and for long-haul trips.
Airlines
650+ airlines bookable, including NDC (as of Oct 2026), through Amadeus, Sabre, Travelport and direct NDC. Low-cost carriers sit alongside full-service airlines in the same search.
Hotels
Marriott, Hilton, IHG, Accor, Hyatt and Wyndham alongside aggregators such as Hotelbeds, WebBeds, Expedia and Agoda, with nightly rate caps per city.
Cities with car rental
Airport transfers and car rental in 200 cities, added to the same itinerary as the flight and hotel so the trip is complete door to door.
Daily bookings in Abu Dhabi
Etihad Stopover runs on altovo and handles 250+ daily bookings in Abu Dhabi. It has been live since 2021, which is the airline relationship behind the content you get in the Gulf.
Currencies, payment and invoicing.
Finance teams in the Gulf want travel to settle in the company's currency, on one invoice, with the exchange rate they agreed. TravelDesk is set up that way from the start.
50+ currencies, FX at your agreed rate
Price and settle in your company's currency. Automated FX is applied at the rate you agree with us, so a fare bought in another currency lands on the invoice at a number finance can reconcile.
80+ payment gateways
The portal sits on 80+ payment gateways, with Checkout.com and Adyen among the processors.
One company invoice, one billing profile
Trips settle to a single company billing profile and arrive as one invoice, rather than a drawer of employee receipts and expense claims. Confirmations and itineraries go to the traveller and the arranger automatically.
Reporting your budget holders can use
Spend by department, cost centre, traveller, route and period, with policy compliance alongside. Export to CSV or feed your BI tool, so duty travel shows up in the same reports as every other cost.
Security, data and compliance.
Ministries and state-owned enterprises in Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the UAE run a vendor review before any booking tool touches employee data. These are the answers.
Certifications
SOC 2 Type II, ISO/IEC 27001:2022 and PCI-DSS Level 1. GDPR compliant.
Hosting and data residency
Hosted on AWS across multiple regions. Data residency requirements differ by jurisdiction, so the options are discussed per country. Speak to the team before your review and we will set out what applies to you.
Single sign-on
SSO with your corporate identity provider, restricted to your company's email domain. Nobody manages a second password, and leavers lose access when their company account is closed.
Buying TravelDesk in the Gulf.
Licence TravelDesk directly from altovo, or through a local TMC in Bahrain, Oman, Egypt, Jordan or any other market in the region. Either way, the platform and the process are the same.
Walkthrough and scope
A 30-minute session on the demo portal, configured for your routes, grades and approval chain. We agree content, currency, billing and any finance or HR connection you need.
Pricing, quoted for your company
TravelDesk is a published platform fee plus a flat per-trip fee. No percentage of your travel spend, so your cost does not rise when fares do. Pricing is quoted by sales. If you buy through a TMC, they licence the platform and set your pricing.
Connect identity, set policy, go live
Connect your identity provider, load your duty travel policy and approvers, invite travellers by domain. There is no custom build, so a company can be live in weeks.
Duty travel questions from the Gulf.
Ready to put your duty travel in one place?
Book a walkthrough and we will configure the demo portal for your grades, approval chain and currency before the call.
Book a walkthrough